How many hours have you spent in the air in 2013?
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at 12:23 by K1ngston.
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Bath_VIPParticipantI was intending to post this next week before posters disappear for Christmas but following the recent unpleasantness on some other threads, I decided to post this today as an antidote.
How many hours have you spent in the air in 2013 (including flights yet to be undertaken before year end)? Note I am only counting time in the air, not scheduled flight times e.g. Bristol to Newcastle is scheduled as 1 hour but planes rarely spend more than 45 mins in the air.
I had an idle moment earlier this week and worked out that I had spent 84 hours in the air this year. This is 3.5 days which is more or less 1% of my life this year. I am sure that there are some people on this forum who might be spending nearer 10% of their time in the air and aircrew must be way more than that.
13 Dec 2013
at 10:52
capetonianmParticipantYou must indeed have a lot of time on your hands to calculate that, by which I mean calculating the actual flight, as opposed to scheduled time, which would be enough for most people. I would take off 12 minutes from each scheduled flight time and I think that would give a good average.
I estimate I’ve done about 60 short haul returns average 2 hours each, so 240 hours, plus 6 returns EU/GB-SA so average 12 hours giving 144 hours, total 384, minus the 12 minutes per segment about 25 hours, total flying time about 260 hours = 11 days = 3% of the year.
The biggest waste of time is the hour or so spent at the airport of departure, and as it’s more or less a constant regardless of the flight duration, I find that more relevant. So if I’ve flown 132 segments I’ve wasted at least 140 hours at airports, another 1.5% of the year!
13 Dec 2013
at 11:15
FormerlyDoSParticipantAs I have to keep a log of flights for tax residency purposes, it is quite easy to drop in an extra column into XL and total the hours.
It’s funny how I can remember all the flights where I don’t travel the route so often, but on the regular routes (e.g. Malta-London), I’ve just taken a typical mean time (based on 8 years of experience.)
So about 380 hours in the air this year or nearly 16 days and nights.
Agree with Capetonianm about the time wasted in aiports, particularly in poorly organized security queues.
For my 124 segments, a security queue of 10 minutes represents over 20 hours in total!
That I will accept, but when ‘Fastrack’ at Heathrow takes 20-30 minutes, that is why I get so annoyed, it just isn’t acceptable.
13 Dec 2013
at 11:30
Bath_VIPParticipantCapetonian,
You make a good point about wasted time which I suppose was in the back of my mind when I started the thread. Do some people see time on board as wasted or as useful time? For me, short haul is invariably wasted time but long haul in business class is useful time.
BTW, you clearly have more time on your hands than mine if you can record the number of flights as well as the hours!
13 Dec 2013
at 11:38
FormerlyDoSParticipantI have to make use of time in the air.
Going up the Gatwick, 2 weeks ago, I wrote 50 questions for a personality questionnaire on the flight; I try to do work that does involve paper (e.g. expenses) as there is not too much space, but I probably get in several days of effort every year.
Yesterday, I did about 3 hours of work on my AUH-MAN flight, before succumbing to the pleasures of the F&B, which were excellent as usual on Etihad.
13 Dec 2013
at 11:44
capetonianmParticipantI keep a rough estimate of days in/out for tax purposes too, but I know that on average I did at least two shorthaul sectors a week, often more, so 120 is possibly low, plus I’ve been to SA about 6 times, and a couple of UK/Canadas which I didn’t include in my previous estimate.
I find the airport time wasted as it’s difficult to sit and relax, but I use the time on flights to read and enjoy it.
13 Dec 2013
at 11:51
FormerlyDoSParticipantcapetonianm
Out of interest, do you keep boarding passes, too?
My tax lawyer suggested keeping rigorous and accurate residencey records, so I have several files full of a printed XL sheet with the flights and the relevant boarding passes, that get destroyed after 7 years.
13 Dec 2013
at 12:03
capetonianmParticipantNo FDoS, I don’t. I probably should but I’m not that well organised. I do keep emails from online bookings and I like to think that in the probably unlikely event of a query they would serve, although I appreciate that they are not proof of travel.
My pattern of spending on plastic money would enable me to prove where I was at any given time, but absence thereof would not prove where I wasn’t if you see what I mean.
13 Dec 2013
at 12:18
K1ngstonParticipantFDoS I like you keep every boarding pass for tax residency reasons but as recently I am employed in a place that enjoys tax relationship with the UK and my employer is dealing with all tax I have been a little lax in 2013.
For the record I have to do all my flights (unless back to the UK) via Miami so I would like to estimate how much time I have wasted in the immigration queues having to transit through to other Caribbean islands or to Latin or Central America.
To give an example to fly to Haiti recently which incidentally is 41 mins as the crow flies from here I had to transit through Miami (2 hours immigration) and 4 hours in the Admirals Lounge it took 13 hours door to door! Therefore this year alone I have wasted 190 hours in Miami airport alone! Slightly different to the question but the wasted time resonated.
Good thread and seasons greetings to all!
13 Dec 2013
at 12:23 -
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